Event
Taha Heydari | CorruptedPost an Event »
Haines Gallery
July 7 - September 3, 2016Info
-
http://www.hainesgallery.com
-
(415) 397-8115
Taha Heydari, "Dark Chamber," 2015, acrylic on canvas, 76 x 83 inches
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 7, 5:30 - 7:30 pm Haines Gallery is pleased to present Corrupted, an exhibition of recent paintings by Taha Heydari (b. 1986, Tehran, Iran; lives and works in Baltimore, MD). The exhibition marks the first time this promising artist’s work has been exhibited on the West Coast. Taha Heydari’s striking, large-scale canvases reflect the artist’s ongoing interest in the power of images and the role of the spectator in the stagecraft of both politics and terror. Throughout the work, there is an emphasis on historic moments and current events that highlight the complex relationships between observer and image, viewer and viewed. Heydari begins each new painting by culling from his growing archive of source material, gleaned from research in libraries and on the Internet, but these images are fragmented and combined until they evoke a mood, rather than a narrative. The beauty of Heydari’s paintings invites closer inspection, which yields an array of ominous associations. The exhibition’s title comes from this dual nature of Heydari’s practice: through a set of formal devices, the artist produces works that suggest corrupted image files, while the underlying photographic sources of his paintings reverberate with corruption of other kinds: political and ethical corrosion, but also the cruel and corrupting impact of certain images themselves.